


Open Book

by Mix Stitch (Synph)



Series: Empire State University stories [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Backstory, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-06
Updated: 2014-06-06
Packaged: 2018-02-03 14:54:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1748618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Synph/pseuds/Mix%20Stitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I was sick a lot and short as a kid," doesn’t cover a whole lot.</p>
<p>Four stories about Steve’s childhood, his health, and growing up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Open Book

**Author's Note:**

> Characters/Pairings: Steve Rogers, Sarah Rogers, Bucky Barnes, Dr. Abraham Erskine, Darcy Lewis
> 
> Prompt: The Body
> 
> Note: Major thanks to [luna-black](http://tmblr.co/mLEmW4BPD4C8sQSsZ80eckQ) for looking over this for me! I totally accidentally mixed up the prompts for today and tomorrow, but whatever, the important thing that there's backstory and at least one more day of my getting the hang of Steve's voice before I go back to my love in for Ororo.
> 
> Contains: descriptions of illness (asthma and implied stuff) and a rehashing and modern take on some of the science stuff in Cap1.

**_Toes_ **

Steve's a small kid.

Tiny even, if he's willing to be honest.

Where Bucky had his first growth spurt and shot up like a weed by the time they were eleven and even Rebecca was catching up on him, Steve still had to stand on the tips of his toes to reach the cereal on top of the fridge. Never mind how he had already resigned himself to never being able to reach the top shelf of  _anything_  before he had even done much growing.

Being short was so not fun.

Still isn't fun, considering how Steve is fourteen going on fifteen now and just as small as he was when Rebecca used to make him and Bucky get down on the floor with her and play dolls while one of the college kids in their building pretended to be watching them. The only thing that really has changed is that Rebecca, at eleven, is finally and officially taller than he is.

Speaking of the little pest --

"Give me back my game," Rebecca shouts, screaming loudly enough at Bucky that even though there's a wall between their bedrooms --and a whole apartment besides-- it's like he's in there with them instead of overhearing their fight. "Give it back! It's mine!"

Steve pauses in his sketching, pencil hovering over the smooth paper of his sketchbook as he contemplates whether or not he wants to take his spare key and go break it up before Rebecca starts throwing everything she can at her brother.

Bucky's voice, deeper than it was when they were kids, echoes through the air.

" _Your_  game," he says, voice angry enough that Steve can almost picture the snarl on his best friend's face. "Nana sent that for  _me_  and you took it! Ooh, you're such a freaking pain, Becca!"

Becca shouts wordlessly at her brother and Steve flinches moments before he hears the thud of something striking the wall in between their respective bedrooms. It's a hard sound, true, but since it isn't followed by the faint tinkling of glass or Bucky screaming about his game, Steve tells himself that he's going to ignore all the other noises that he hears.

That resolve lasts all of five minutes later when Steve's mom's cellphone lights up and the text alert that Becca chose for her brother starts to go off on top of the battered nightstand next to his bed.

**Bucky** :  _Do you have any wood glue left?_

**Steve** :Y?

**Bucky** :  _Becca needs you to fix something for her._

**Steve** :  _What's in it for me?_

**Bucky** : _2 pieces of of Ma's apple pie + new comics books???_

**Steve** : I'll be right there

In his haste to get next door for some of Winnie Barnes' famous apple pie, Steve nearly forgets to grab the tube of glue from where it's been stuffed in his small supply box all summer.

**_Knees_ **

In their sophomore year, their regular gym teacher (the one that thinks Steve can do no wrong and brings him and Bucky cookies at least once a week) goes on a honeymoon with her new wife and their class gets a substitute teacher for the rest of the week.

But not just any substitute. No, they get the substitute from hell.

He makes them do laps all the freaking time except for when he forces them to play some kind of team sport where Steve is picked last every time unless Bucky's one of the team captains. And if Steve has to be condescended at one more time, he's going to wind up saying or doing something that won't look so hot on his permanent record.

Ugh.

"What's wrong with the little guy again?" Steve hears the substitute teacher ask one of the other kids in the class when he passes by the teacher on his way around the track. This probably isn't the first time that the guy has said something about him all day and it's definitely not the first time he's done so all week.

The guy's a jerk.

Steve grits his teeth and keeps on running, pushing past the ache in his joints and the way his chest sort of starts to get tight with every second he keeps trying to push himself. He doesn't hear what his classmate says to the sub, but it doesn't matter, it never matters.

Either Steve'll be lucky and the classmate -- a girl that's lived down the block from him since preschool -- will be one of the few kids that'll say something nice, or he'll be really unlucky and wind up being the butt of yet another joke going around their high school.

He frowns and pushes himself harder, lifting his knees higher even though every movement doesn't make him hurt, as though his knees aren't knocking together and like he's not well on his way to having an asthma attack.

Bucky comes up on Steve's right side, slowing down so that he doesn't pass Steve the way he's been doing all class.

"You okay, man?" Bucky asks, one hand coming down hard on Steve's shoulder and keeping him from moving.

"Y-yes," Steve gasps. A moment later, when Bucky gives him a narrow-eyed look, he recants. "Okay, no. No. I'm not." It's not as bad as it could be, but yeah no… Steve's not okay. He pats himself down, feeling for the inhaler he usually keeps in his pockets.

The inhaler, Steve realizes with a slowly dawning horror settling in his stomach, that is currently still in the front pocket of his hoody. The hoody that is currently taking up space in his locker.

Bucky frowns, noticing the misplaced inhaler about the same time that Steve does. "Shit, Steve --"

"I know," Steve hisses.

Bucky turns to face the substitute teacher and the rest of the students on the bleachers and raises his hand. "Excuse me um, sir," he says loudly enough that the substitute teacher can hear him clearly above the chatter. "Can I take Steve to the nurse's office?"

The sub actually has the gall to say, "Why? Can't he walk there himself?"

"Excuse me --"

Steve shakes his head before Bucky can let fly with something that's guaranteed to earn them both a referral.

"He's having an asthma attack,  _sir_ ," Bucky says, the ends of his words clipped with anger. "Can we leave or not?"

**Shoulders**

Dr. Erskine is hands down the best doctor that Steve has ever had in his nineteen years of life.

He doesn't bat an eye when Steve troops into the examination room in his building followed by his mother and Bucky. When he starts the preliminaries -- taking Steve's blood, testing his reflexes and the like -- he doesn't react like some of the other medical professionals that Steve has seen over the years, the ones that look at him and at the notes in his chart and ask "How are you walking around?" as though that's funny or remotely professional.

Instead, he takes copious amounts of notes as Steve and Bucky watch, explaining as he goes.

Eventually, Dr. Erskine rests his clipboard down on the counter behind him and turns to face Steve and his family. The brief but intense look on his face transforms his features somewhat, making him look less like the kindly grandfather that comes to mind whenever Steve looks at him.

"First things first," Dr. Erskine says, "This is a highly experimental procedure. While Steve is by far the best candidate for the procedure among our applicants, that doesn't mean that the procedure is guaranteed to be a success. You need to be aware that there may be side effects or complications resulting from the procedure."

Steve feels like his heart leaps straight up into his throat.

"Side effects?" His mother's voice echoes Steve's thoughts and he turns to look at where she's sitting in the room's only chair next to where Bucky has to be holding up a section of the wall with how hard he's leaning on it. "What kind of side effects? Are you saying my baby could die?"

"Ma --"

She shakes her head. "No, Steve. No. We need to know."

"Yeah, Steve," Bucky says even though his eyes are fixed on Dr. Erskine, "Let's hear what the good doctor has to say okay?"

Dr. Erskine tells them everything. Everything Steve knew about the experimental procedure and the cooperation between the head of Stark Industries and the government along with a few things that he didn't know. Like the side effects. The near endless list of side effects and complicated complications that could happen to Steve if his body reacts badly to the serum.

God.

Steve shudders once the doctor is done with his list, forgetting for a moment that he's in a room with two of the most overprotective people he knows.

"You don't have to do this, sweetie," his mom says softly, looking at him with the telltale gleam of tears in her eyes. "It's a big risk."

Steve nods. "Yeah, it is. But I want to do it -- I  _need_  to do it. You know?"

When his mom's bottom lip quivers, Steve's resolve very nearly breaks, but then Bucky pats her shoulder and offers her a smile that's only a little strained around the edges.

"Hey, don't worry, Sarah," Bucky says, ignoring the way that Steve narrows his eyes at him for using his mom's first name, "Our boy's tough. Okay?" 

When his mom nods, Steve feels tension seep out of his shoulders and spine. He glances over at where Dr. Erskine is holding another clipboard, this one with the tiny print of medical forms.

"So," Steve says, making himself smile despite his nervousness. "Where do I sign?

**Head**

"Jesus, you're freaking huge!"

Steve will never get used to hearing someone say that about him. Especially not from pretty girls that look at him and not  _through_  him like they used to when the only thing they needed him for was Bucky's phone number or help in History. (Not that the girls that look at him now see the real him either, but Steve tries not to think about it too hard.)

In the years following his time with Dr. Erskine and the procedure he's still not sure he's allowed to  _think_  about without violating any number of NDAs he signed when the program had started, Steve has shot up and up and up. Growing a foot taller and gaining at least a hundred pounds in that little time was -- jarring to say the least.

So Steve blinks, bemused because he's still not quite sure if something like that is supposed to be a compliment.

"Excuse me?"

The dark-haired girl sitting at the sign-in sheet in the Stark Industries-sponsored section of on-campus housing at ESU grins at him.

"Well it's true," she says, gesturing at Steve's body with the uncapped pen in her right hand. "You're built like an MMA fighter and a Greek god did the nasty. Where on earth did Stark Industries find you?"

Steve hears himself say a quietly stunned "Oh my god," as the girl's grin widens and and wiggles her eyebrows at him.

"So?"

"So…?

"Where'd they find you? The middle of Kanas or something, cause you look mighty corn fed to me and I want to know if you have a clone or a brother somewhere out there."

Steve finds himself laughing before he can catch himself.

"I'm from Brooklyn," Steve says. "Just Brooklyn. And um -- can I sign in? Please?"

In a snap, the girl's demeanor goes from teasing to mostly professional. She holds a small hand for Steve's ID and then flicks through the stack of papers in front of her once she looks at his student number.

"Steven Grant Rogers," she announces with the sort of relish that only people that don't have middle names can have. "You're in luck! You're in my building." She holds out his card and when he takes it, she beams at him. "I'm Darcy Lewis, your new RA."

Steve blinks slowly. "Okay… Um. What do I do now?"

Darcy looks up at him, mouth twisted in a faint frown. "Do you already have your stuff on campus?"

Steve nods. "Yeah, some of them. I'm driving back home to get the rest of my stuff tomorrow."

"Good," Darcy says decisively. "Wanna help me sign people in until my shift is done? I'll bet it's more fun than getting unpacked and I can pick your brain while I'm at it."

"Why would I want to do that?" Steve asks, honestly confused.

Darcy shrugs and then scrunches up her face at him. "Because I'm your RA and it's my job to know what makes you tick?" She pauses and then waves in a way that encompasses Steve's whole body. "Besides, I think I probably should apologize for well… all of that junk earlier. I'm your RA but I'm also a stranger and I was pretty freaking rude. I should save that sort of thing for when our friendship deepens."

"How --"

Darcy winks at him.

"Psych major. I like… read people, you know? It's my thing. As long as I pay attention to what I'm picking up and all." She pats the empty seat next to her and offers Steve a winning smile. "So, Steve, cop a squat and I'll tell you everything you need to know about ESU."


End file.
